The research team led by Hailan Hu has recently published a review titled Circuits and Functions of the Lateral Habenula in Health and in Disease on Nature Reviews Neuroscience online on April 8th. This review provides an update on the basic organization of the lateral habenula (LHb), and describes various physiological functions of LHb and the relevance of the LHb in major psychiatric disorders.

The past decade has witnessed exponentially growing interest in the lateral habenula (LHb) owing to new discoveries relating to its critical role in regulating negatively motivated behaviour and its implication in major depression. The LHb, sometimes referred to as the brain’s ‘antireward centre’, receives inputs from diverse limbic forebrain and basal ganglia structures, and targets essentially all midbrain neuromodulatory systems, including the noradrenergic, serotonergic and dopaminergic systems. Its unique anatomical position enables the LHb to act as a hub that integrates value- based, sensory and experience- dependent information to regulate various motivational, cognitive and motor processes. Dysfunction of the LHb may contribute to the pathophysiology of several psychiatric disorders, especially major depression. Recently, exciting progress has been made in identifying the molecular and cellular mechanisms in the LHb that underlie negative emotional state in animal models of drug withdrawal and major depression. A future challenge is to translate these advances into effective clinical treatments.

Link of the article：https://www.nature.com/articles/s41583-020-0292-4

The authors’ research work is supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China, the non- profit Central Research Institute Fund of the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences, the National Key R&D Program of China, the Science and Technology Program of Guangdong Province, the 111 Project and the Fountain- Valley Life Sciences Fund of University of Chinese Academy of Sciences Education Foundation.

Prof. Hailan Hu from Zhejiang University School of Medicine is Chang Jiang Scholars Distinguished Professor, receiver of National Science Foundation for Distinguished Young Scholars of China. Research in her lab aims to understand how emotional and social behaviors are encoded in the brain, with a main focus on the neural circuitry underlying depression and social dominance. Representative articles were published on international famous publications including Nature, Science and Nature Neuroscience. Besides, Prof. Hu received the IBRO-Kemali International Prize, HLHL Prize，Tan Jia Zhen Life Science Award, 14th Chinese Young Scientist Award and so on.

Figure. Summary of the afferent and efferent circuitry of the LHb. 外侧缰核上下游神经环路图